Motels Prepare for Uncertain Season

In a normal May, Chéticamp motels would be welcoming visitors from around the world. But as we get closer to June in the COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism sector remains at a standstill. “The big question,” Greg Larocque, owner of the Cornerstone Motel said, “do we even open?”

Tourism is one of the main economic drivers in the region. About 130 people regularly work at hotels and accommodations in Chéticamp - 2.5% of the population. Not to mention every other local business that benefits from the flow of tourists, such as restaurants, retail and gas stations.

But it seems very few people, if any, are planning to come this year. “All of our main reservations by themselves dropped off,” Larocque said. “We had actually decided May would be a closed month, but they all dropped off anyway. June has completely cleared out … and we’re on our way to July clearing off as well. July and August are very significant months in a seasonal business and at this point, there are extremely low calls for rooms in that time frame.”

Larocque, who is also an organizer of the Chéticamp Area Registered Lodging Association, believes that COVID-19 could affect the industry for years to come. The question of whether to open this season could be a matter of life and death for some businesses. “If you stay closed, you know what your cost will be. They’re set costs, basically,” he said. “If you open, cost will go up incrementally. … Those costs… will hurt the business tremendously because you don’t know whether it will take you on the debt load, and suddenly you make more debt load that you ever planned on because nobody shows up, and you can’t control who’s going to show up or who’s not.” Even if borders open, the pandemic has had a negative effect on people’s paycheques. “The first thing that’s going to fall off your platform when your finances are low,” Larocque said,” it’s going to be your vacation.”

Although government programs have been helping tourism businesses, it hasn’t been enough to mitigate the damage. “By no stretch of the imagination does it, in no way shape or form, eliminate the debt that we will go into because of COVID,” Larocque said. “The government incentives have allowed, I would call it, small-to-medium-size businesses to be able to pick up some funds, so that helped out immensely. The Wage Subsidy is a great advantage to have but without employees, you can’t use it.”

With its 17 rooms, the Cornerstone is larger than most motels in the area. It usually employs five to six workers. This season, Larocque said, he might be able to hire three in the best of cases. So even if he opens, some people will be out of a job.

Like other seasonal workers, tourism employees rely on Employment Insurance (EI) to support themselves the rest of the year. But the program covers only those who work a certain number of hours, and even people who get hired will be working less this belated season. “The biggest problem that we’re going to run into is probably our staff, and their ability to receive EI,” Larocque said. “Right now, the government has not put together a formula for tourism, but they most certainly have done that for the fishing industry. I believe they need to … make sure that the same principles that were listed for the fishing industry in order to the get their wages through the winter need to be part of the government’s actions at this point, due to the fact that many of the people here are in great need of that and cannot survive ultimately throughout the winter without [it].”

Click here to hear CHNE’s extended interview with Greg Larocque.